Italian invasion and occupation
Mussolini's Italy invades with poison gas, the League of Nations fails Ethiopia, and five years of brutal occupation and resistance end with the emperor's return.
- The Addis Ababa Massacre: Italy's National Shame — Ian Campbell, Hurst (2017)
- A History of Modern Ethiopia, 1855–1991 — Bahru Zewde, James Currey (2001)
- Haile Selassie I — Encyclopaedia Britannica
- A History of Ethiopia — Harold G. Marcus, University of California Press (2002)
Italy invaded from Eritrea and Somaliland in October 1935, seeking revenge for Adwa and an empire. The League of Nations condemned the invasion but imposed only weak sanctions; oil was not included. Italian forces used aircraft and mustard gas, in breach of the 1925 Geneva Protocol, against Ethiopian soldiers and civilians. Addis Ababa fell on 5 May 1936. Haile Selassie went into exile and, in June 1936, made a famous appeal to the League in Geneva, warning that collective security was at stake. He was jeered by Italian journalists, and the League soon dropped its sanctions.
- Haile Selassie I — Encyclopaedia Britannica
- A History of Modern Ethiopia, 1855–1991 — Bahru Zewde, James Currey (2001)
- A History of Ethiopia — Harold G. Marcus, University of California Press (2002)
Resistance never stopped. On 19 February 1937 (Yekatit 12 in the Ethiopian calendar), two young Eritreans threw grenades at Viceroy Rodolfo Graziani. Over the next three days, Italian Blackshirts, soldiers and civilians rampaged through Addis Ababa, burning homes and killing residents. Estimates of the dead vary widely: Italian sources gave far lower figures, Ethiopian sources claimed 30,000, and the historian Ian Campbell estimates about 19,000. In May 1937 Italian troops executed hundreds of monks and pilgrims at the monastery of Debre Libanos, and educated young Ethiopians were systematically hunted down.
- The Addis Ababa Massacre: Italy's National Shame — Ian Campbell, Hurst (2017)
- A History of Modern Ethiopia, 1855–1991 — Bahru Zewde, James Currey (2001)
When Italy entered the Second World War in 1940, Britain backed the Ethiopian Patriots with troops from Sudan, Kenya and the empire. Haile Selassie re-entered Addis Ababa on 5 May 1941, exactly five years after it fell.
- A History of Modern Ethiopia, 1855–1991 — Bahru Zewde, James Currey (2001)
- A History of Ethiopia — Harold G. Marcus, University of California Press (2002)
Why it matters today
The occupation is remembered as a time of atrocity and of heroic resistance by the "Patriots" (arbegnoch), including many women. Yekatit 12 (19 February) is a day of mourning, Patriots' Victory Day is a holiday, and Italian-era roads, buildings and Amharic words like *mekina* (car, from Italian *macchina*) are everywhere. Many Ethiopians insist the period was an occupation, not colonisation, and that Italy never truly ruled.